Natural redhead and frequent John Wayne co-star, Maureen O’Hara was an Irish-American actress known for playing headstrong heroines in Westerns and adventure films.
Born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, O’Hara began training with the Rathmines Theatre Company at 10 years old, making her film debut alongside Charles Laughton in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1939 film Jamaica Inn.
That same year, O’Hara made the move to Hollywood to appear with Laughton in a production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, also securing a contract with RKO Pictures.
Dubbed “the Queen of Technicolor,” O’Hara had a successful career over the next three decades, appearing in John Ford’s How Green Was My Valley (1941), The Black Swan with Tyrone Power (1942), Christmas classic Miracle on 34th Street (1947), five films with John Wayne, including The Quiet Man (1952), and iconic family comedy, The Parent Trap (1961).
O’Hara retired from acting in 1971 but returned to film in 1991 for romantic comedy Only the Lonely with John Candy, of whom O’Hara called one of her “all-time favorite leading men.”
O’Hara was honored with an Honorary Oscar at the 2014 Academy Awards and was named Ireland’s greatest film actor by The Irish Times in 2020.
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